Immigration Ban Protest At Bloomsburg University Draws People From Both Sides

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BLOOMSBURG UNIVERSITY -- More than a hundred people marched and chanted holding signs in protest of President Trump’s travel ban on people from 7 countries.

According to the State Department, 60 thousand visas have been canceled since Trump signed the executive order last week.

Trump says the order is meant to protect Americans from foreign national terrorists.

Critics call it a ban on Muslims.

"This is important because these people are people, no matter what nationality, no matter what color, religion, they are people and we need to come together to support them,” said Elizabeth Miller, a Bloomsburg University student who helped organize the protest.

"They're dying because they can't come to a safe place. And that's what the U.S is, a safe place for people. Why can't we have an American dream?" said Megan McCaslin, who is president of Bloomsburg University’s Muslim Student Association.

The protest at Bloomsburg University was organized by students, but professors and community members were here as well.

"I don't want to sit down and watch the suffering of other people and I don't feel comfortable doing that,” said Dr. M. Safa Saracoglu, a Bloomsburg University Professor who teaches Islamic History.

Trump's supporters showed up as well, standing and watching, and after the protests, speaking with protesters.

"There's less than 1/10th of one percent the university here so I don't think anybody cares at all. Trump is doing what he said he was going to do and that's what the people, 60 percent of the people of Columbia County voted for, so I don't think this is going to have any impact on anything the administration is doing,” said Dave Reilly of Bloomsburg.

The student organizers at Bloomsburg say they know they are far from Washington, but they hope their message will be heard, along with the messages of protests around the nation.

"We've gotten a really positive response and we're glad to see that everyone cares so much about these issues,” said Jessa Wood, another student organizer.

39 comments

Mare Z

Although the 2011 ban had differences, the previous administration banned certain immigrants/refugees from entering our country; a ban, is a ban. Why should it have been considered ‘legal’ when obama instituted his ban, but President Trump’s executive action receive all sorts of grief from the ‘progressive liberal left’ and ‘apologists?’
I think many of us can see where this is going; obama, and his like-minded political cronies, intend to be a thorn in the side of the Trump Administration. Well, as the weeks and months progress, and the attacks from the ideology intensify and become more frequent, Americans will sing a different tune when the seriousness of what President Trump is trying to prevent begins to register, and possibly hit a little too close to home.
Americans are going to wake up and get that ‘old feeling’; we’ll no doubt rekindle that same rage, the same feelings, that same urge to retaliate that we had on the morning of September 11, 2001.
Only the blind and uninformed do-gooders turn their back on or take their eyes off of the death that still comes from that same ideology that attacked us that Tuesday morning.
Take your blinders off, America; realize that jihad has been declared upon us, and it’s only going to get worse.
It’s dangerous, fatally dangerous, to even try to coddle this breed of enemy; this enemy who has already entered our nation like the famed ‘Trojan Horse.’ It is covert and has dug-in like a ‘tick’ on a deer.
Wake up, America; this enemy is ‘cunning’, it has merely picked-up where it left off during the Colonial Days of our ancestors. This enemy has chosen to reinstate the horrors of the days of the Crusades.

Robert

Awe common Z, how can multiple wives be such a bad thing. Just say a few allah akbars and women are at our beck and call. We really do need to setup a getaway where we can drink however. How about the Bahamas?

les

Dan

I would love to see the Draft come back. Also, do these baby’s even take time to study and go to class. They should shut down Berkley. No refunds on tuitions. and fine every little woose in that college. Go to school and learn. You will have plenty of time to be a JERK when you graduate.

JD

Ya know,, BEFORE there were ‘Sanctuary Cities” for immigrants, there were “TENT cities” for the Americans who lost their jobs and their homes. Where was the protesting on THAT? Where’s the protesting for homeless vets? Where’s the Catholic Church for American Citizens?

JohnKimball

The daily itinerary for today’s lefty protestor:
Morning: pick up a sign demanding equal rights for women and gays.
Afternoon: pick up a sign demanding we bring in more people whose religion teaches treating women like animals and throwing suspected gays off of buildings.

duh

Where were all these protesters and where was all the media coverage when Obama did the same to Cuban refugees trying to gain access to the American dream? Just curious. People are dying all over the world for a variety of reasons. It is not the job of the USA to take in every mongrel from the world – not until every homeless veteran is housed and employed and every hungry child has a meal. Enough already.

AgreeWithYou

the American branch of the Roman Catholic Church is getting millions of taxpayer dollars to settle refugees. According to their financial statement the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops received over $79 million in government grants to provide benefits to refugees in 2014 .

Ironically, the Catholic Bishops are bringing Muslims in, while closing down Catholic churches inside the U.S.

Ann Corcoran’s Refugee Resettlement Watch website notes that Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church in Syracuse, New York, was closed down by the Catholic Church and has been leased to an Islamic society which renamed it Mosque Of Jesus The Son Of Mary. ( if they were so full of humane aid to these people why not let them be lease free? )

Look up ann corcoran video where she explains more. Very good video for those who want to learn the real truth.

In addition to direct federal grants to help refugees, government at various levels provide subsidized housing, healthcare, food stamps, other cash assistance, and free education. There is also a cost to the criminal justice system of taking care of the criminals among them.

It’s the Catholic role, in collaboration with the federal government, in bringing refugees to the U.S. that caused Corcoran to leave the church. She told Accuracy in Media, “In 2002, having been raised in a protestant faith, I became a Catholic. For a few years I loved being a Catholic. All of that changed beginning in 2007 when I learned that another church group began resettling mostly Muslim refugees to my rural county in Western Maryland. I learned that the church group was largely funded and directed by the U.S. State Department to place the refugees in our county with no local input.”

She added, “But that is not everything I learned. My research led me to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ acceptance of over $70 million a year of taxpayer dollars to similarly resettle thousands of impoverished third-worlders, many from Muslim countries, in other unsuspecting towns and cities.

Catholic Charities throughout the U.S. get many millions more to do the work as well.”

She says this kind of work by the Catholic and other churches is not Christian charity. “As harsh as it sounds,” she says, “I look on it as thievery when a supposedly non-profit ‘religious charity’ helps itself to the U.S. Treasury and then pats itself on the back for doing good works. And then lobbies Congress for more money for itself to boot!”
But these organizations and Catholic churches won’t help the Homeless Vets or children with the same things they get for these refugees by way of Federal dollars ..they aren’t supporting the refugees out of the goodness of their own heart or their own money.

This is the problem that the media does. They dont report these True Facts in the the same articles where Bishops or Priests say how we need to help these refugees. Only forcing people like me to do research and find out this stuff.

Givemeabreak

You are on the computer commenting on a message board criticizing someone for envoking their First Amendment rights and saying the draft should be reinstated for these people that don’t have anything to do .I say let’s include the hypocrites as well that type on their keyboards mocking others when they should have something better to do.

GetOnBoard

I Served in the Military And would gladly do so again under President Trump any day. He respects and cares for the Military and even titled the Military Ball as
” Salute to Our Armed Forces ” Inaugural ball. Where as Obama both elections titled it “Commander-in-Chief ” Inaugural ball.
Don’t you see the Big difference right there in how the Military is treated. The Military already knows that any President is the Commander in Chief. Why call it that?

JD

I was just wondering: Of all the people protesting against the “travel” ban, how many of those people would join the Army, march their fannies over to the immigrants country, fight their enemies and make THEIR country GREAT AGAIN?!

Hey Ding bats…….and liberals…….
President Trump issued the executive order of suspending the immigration as per the powers endowed to him by the US Law, 8 U.S. Code § 1182 -Current through Public Law 114-38:

“Whenever the (USA) President finds that the entry of ANY aliens or of ANY
class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of ALL aliens or ANY class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens ANY restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

The Immigration Law is perfectly constitutional, as per Supreme Court decision, which unanimously stated, that according to the US Constitution, the federal govern­ment has the exclusive power to enact and enforce the nation’s immigration laws:

Supreme Court decided: “Where the federal government, in the exercise of its superior authority in this field of immi­gration, has enacted a complete scheme
of regulation and has therein provided a standard for the registration of aliens, states cannot, inconsistently with the purpose of Congress, conflict or interfere with, curtail or comple­ment, the federal law, or enforce additional or auxiliary regulation.”

The Supreme Court here is crystal clear: the reg­ulation of immigration is a matter for
the federal government. Any efforts to regulate immigrants through the US Congress —even complementary efforts—are unconstitutional.

Allen

That was Obama’s punishment for Hillary’s Florida loss. The people of Cuba have dealt with a Marxist government in their country and were allowed here if they successfully made it to shore. The LAST thing they’d vote for is more of what they tried to get away from. So when the liberals lost FL, they barred the Cuban immigrants as payback…. I guess conservative Cubans aren’t the right “KIND” of immigrants to the Democrats.

Aaron

in one week, WNEP has run 15 stories on this issue. Nice activist newsroom, WNEP. The agenda is clear. Do a story on the right these people have to come to the US. Just one story on that topic. Just one.

Givemeabreak

WarningFakeNews

Balanced reporting is what I seek, but having a comment section open to accept that balance is good, even though they place fast and loose with the delete button. I want the truth, not a “narrative” some faux journalist wants to push in place of the actual news.

WarningFakeNews

sigmund shekelstein

There are plenty of “safe places’ closer to where the so-called “refugees” are coming from, including several Muslim nations that are wealthy, free of conflict, and better able to integrate a mass of Muslims. No foreigner has an unrestricted right to come here and we have no obligation to take in third-worlders who practice an ideology that is the antithesis to our own conventions, no matter how much some media or academia Jew tells you otherwise.

butterz

goose

I have no argument with that. Read “Pet Cemetery” by Stephen King before wandering into the woods though. The “Lamestream Media” will have you believe that hookers are peeing on our president, and that “1984” was written about that guy as well. Orwellian factors are people rioting about freedom of speech however. No coverage about Milo Yiannopoulos going to the top of Amazon’s Best Sellers charts from 627th after the UC Berkeley riots? That’s a shame.

goose

To make this clear for all of you “leftists”. I mentioned Milo back last May as the “Gay, Jewish, White, Flamboyant, now Christian, Snappy Dresser, That Only Dates Black Guys”. Yeah, people didn’t believe me. And the uninformed college kids that slurp up your ACB nonsense are calling him, “A white Fascist Racist Homophobe” while lighting things on fire and bashing innocent girls in the face with bats and sticks trying to push the statement that this company purveyed as truth. Noice reporting Why-inept.. or wnep as you call it. You are getting people killed you slags

WarningFakeNews

Milo is awesome, he provides proof that the “protected classes” mean absolutely nothing to the left, unless you’re a liberal. That was also evident in the case of Clarence Thomas and many others, but with Milo, it goes to a level so deep that there’s no explaining it away. Milo exposes the lie that democrats care about identity politics, and without that, folks? They got nothin’.

Givemeabreak

Milo is an extremist and any extremist is bad. I do agree with you that the left does use identity politics but the right also uses the exact opposite tactic. All it is, is a way of splitting us up into two separate parties to keep us divided. Whatever the right does the left does the opposite. This is divide and conquer politics. There is no difference between the two parties in D.C. When we realize that we the people are our own category that’s when things will really be for the people.

goose

Identity politics indeed. That was why he was silenced. The same thing happened to Gavin McInnes at NYU. The real story is the $10,000 security fees that the colleges throw at the organizers a couple days before the speakers show up trying to bankrupt the movement. When that don’t work? Riots happen thanks to Georgie boy.

WarningFakeNews

All extremists are bad? The statement, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” would be considered extreme if Milo, or even President Trump uttered it, and the left would have a cow if they said such a thing. They would spend countless hours of air time asking if they were calling for violence, or if they lost their mind. The quote is from Thomas Jefferson. Was he an extremist? I’d say yes, he believed fervently in liberty- and was willing to die for it. That’s extreme. And good.

Givemeabreak

Their emotions usually get them enslaved? Galileo was a scientist that tried telling everyone the planets revolved around the sun and he was imprisoned because he was viewed as a heretic. Jesus was nailed to the cross because he felt what he was doing was right. It is more about that there is no right or wrong in society only popular opinion. People that stand up and fight for what they believe in or know, whether you agree with them or not, these are the people that have changed the world and made this country what it is today. Not the people that hide or are scared of a couple of thugs from across the ocean. Those are the real cowards and we don’t need anymore week minded people. If you know something isn’t right you should definitely stand up and let your voice be heard peacefully. The First Amendment is a beautiful thing that many Americans gave the ultimate sacrifice for.

CeeMe

Givemeabreak

You voted for Trump because you think he is tough? Lol. I have never seen a more insecure man always worried about crowd sizes and the popular vote that doesn’t even matter. He won! When is he going to stop whining? How is he tough? I would say stubborn, pig headed, but not tough. He is the most sensitive person I have ever seen. Any fool knows that bravado is a cover-up for insecurity. Insecurity is definitely a weakness. Trump can’t take any criticism from anyone. The most thin skinned person I have ever witnessed. Maybe that goes for tough in today’s world.

JP

Maybe we should take heed from what happened in France. Better screening for anyone who wants to come into this country. Maybe all you idiots should take a trip to Ellis Island and see what our grandparents had to go through before they entered this country. Way to go Trump.